Blessed Blessed Oblivion

BLESSED BLESSED OBLIVION weaves together a portrait of masculine performativity in East Jerusalem, as manifested in gyms, body shops and hair dressing parlors. Inspired by Kenneth Anger’s Scorpio Rising (1963), the video uses visual collage and the musical soundtrack as ironic commentary. Anger’s subjects — leather-clad bikers, serve as a counterpoint to the culture Manna attempts to portray, that of stereotyped male “thug” culture in Palestine. Close-up fragments construct an eroticised and parodic montage of bodies, cars and places, intersected by snippets of dialogue and a monologue about the art of a car wash. Simultaneously psychologizing the characters and seduced by them, Manna finds herself in a double bind similar to the conflicted desire that animates her protagonist as he drifts from abject rants to declamations of heroic poetry and unashamed self-praise.